Islamic State verdicts mark ‘turning point’

Leading Swiss papers have welcomed the Federal Criminal Court’s ‘exemplary’ convictions of foreign Islamist militants, accused of planning a terror attack in Switzerland as part of the Islamic State group.  “This is a turning point which marks a real willingness to fight the jihadist threat,” the Le Temps French-speaking daily wrote on Saturday. “It sends out a warning signal…this verdict proves that Swiss justice wants to be intransigent on this sensitive area. There is no question of Switzerland, which for a long time has considered itself unaffected by the phenomenon, being the soft underbelly in the fight against terrorism.”  In Switzerland's first convictions of people accused of links to the Islamic State and first heavy sentences for terrorism, the three Iraqis were jailed on Friday for between 42 and 56 months, at a trial conducted under tight security in the southern Swiss city of Bellinzona. A fourth man was acquitted.  The verdicts are not final. The ...